Fellow science blogger Coturnix is assembling some posts about science for an anthology. He’s been asking for people to contribute suggestions. I’ve been meaning to thumb through my old posts in order to send one over, but it’s been more of a challenge than I thought. Part of the problem is that pieces of writing are like children, and it’s no fun to break up the family. The other part of the problem is that my brain is just about reduced to goo between finishing my book and managing a couple of sick kids over the Christmas break.

Continue reading “An Appeal to the Loom’s Collective Hive Wisdom: Help Me Pick a Post” →

All I want for Christmas is a lying frog and a bubble-sniffing mole.

For those who want to head for the original papers, check out:

1. “Why Animals Lie: How Dishonesty and Belief Can Coexist in a Signaling System” (free full text)

2. “Underwater ‘sniffing’ by semi-aquatic mammals”

Happy Holidays!

Continue reading “Two stories in tomorrow’s New York Times” →

The manuscript clock is still ticking, and so, in lieu of true blogging, let me direct your attention to another article of mine. This time it’s the cover story in the December issue of Discover. Discover chose Jay Keasling as their scientist of the year and asked me to interview him. Keasling, who directs the Berkeley Center for Synthetic Biology, is trying to get either E. coli or yeast to crank out a powerful malaria drug normally only made by the sweet wormwood plant. I had already been getting familiar with Keasling’s work, since it is a great example of the sort of work that’s being done on E coli, the subject of my book. So it was a pleasure to talk to Keasling at length about this ambitious project.

Continue reading “A Natural Factory” →

My radio silence is the result of a perfect storm–reporting trips, upcoming holidays, and the minor matter of my deadline for turning in my book at the end of the year. Any free moment gets gobbled up before I can even think about blogging. But I can point you to some pieces of mine that are now coming out in various non-blog outlets. First up: the natural history of play. It’s part of a special report on games that appeared yesterday in Forbes.com. 

Originally published December 15, 2006. Copyright 2006 Carl Zimmer.

Thanks to PZ Myers for calling attention to this superb video of Corydceps, a parasitic fungus that drives its insect host up a plant before growing a spike out of its head. Leave it to David Attenborough, master of the nature documentary, to bring the beauty of this parasite to video. I’ve seen photographs of Cordyceps before, but I never knew it made such a graceful entrance.

What’s particularly cool about Cordyceps is that it is not alone. Other parasites drive their hosts to bizarre heights. Another fungus, called Entomophthora muscae, drives houseflies and other insects upwards, climbing screen doors in some cases, before springing out of its host’s body.

Continue reading “Your Monday Morning Parasite Show (Safe for Breakfast)” →